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Brittney Griner calls Mercury’s arena woes ‘f—ing frustrating’

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Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The Phoenix Mercury will have home-court advantage for Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals on Sunday, but they won’t be playing at their usual home arena, the Footprint Center.

Instead, the team will play at Arizona State’s Desert Financial Arena to accommodate a Disney on Ice show scheduled to take place at the Footprint Center.

“Yeah, it’s very f—ing frustrating, honestly,” Griner told Alex Simon of The Next. “Why can we not play in our own arena? Did we think that we weren’t going to make playoffs? Why is that concert that more important than the Phoenix Mercury playing on our home court in our arena? You know, that’s sad.”

Scheduling woes are nothing new for the Mercury. The team had their first-round games in 2017 and 2018 moved due to conflicts at their downtown venue. They ran into the same problem this year, when their first-round contest against the Liberty was re-located to GCU Arena to make way for a Maluma concert at the Footprint Center.

The Mercury will look to go up 2-1 in the semifinal series when they face the Las Vegas Aces in Game 3 on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on ABC.